Wall Street Journal not amused by spoof

New York, April 14 (IANS) The redoubtable Wall Street Journal does not seem to have been tickled by a new paper spoofing it, so much so that advance copies of the tabloid are being whisked away from news stands. “Bush abolishes death, taxes - Move will benefit McCain” is the lead headline on the front page of the inaugural issue of “My Wall Street Journal”, which has a striking similarity to the 120-year-old original. The accompanying story tries to make a point about the age, 71, of John McCain, the likely Republican candidate for the presidential election in the US.

“Could Hillary win as an African-American Man?” is another headline with a picture of Hillary Clinton morphed as one.

But the satirical newspaper mostly sets out to poke fun at The Journal’s new owner, the News Corporation, and its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, besides Wall Street firms and traders, and assorted politicians and pundits.

Although the new paper’s release date is Thursday, some newsstands began selling it last week. And owner of one newsstand in Los Angeles reported somebody buying all the available copies from his stand and other stands, The New York Times reported Monday.

Contacted by the Times, a spokesman for The Journal declined to comment.

Tony Hendra, editor of the satire, is known to have created Journal parodies in the 1980s. This time, he has contributions from a team of comedy writers and online outlets including Amazon.com and wsjparody.com.

Hendra, a former editor of “National Lampoon”, said somebody trying to hoard copies would be good for sales. I’d find it amusing if they bought all 250,000,” he told the Times, referring to the print run of the satire.